Friday, March 13, 2015

Rev. Barrow: the woman who propped up the image of Rev. Jesse Jackson

I’m
almost hesitant to note the passing Thursday of the Rev. Willie T.
Barrow – fearing anything I write will wind up being trite and unworthy of her
significance to Chicago and to our society.

But
her passing while being treated at Jackson Park Hospital for a blood clot near her lung is something
that should be noted to people with an interest in the way Chicago has evolved.

SHE
LIVED TO the age of 90 and engaged in many good works through the PUSH/Rainbow
Coalition that have made our city a better place for us to live – even though I’m
sure there are some cranks out there who are going to want to view her as part
of the problem.

Personally,
I dealt with Rev. Barrow off-and-on during the quarter-century that I have been
a reporter-type person in the Chicago area. I’m not going to claim to be
all-knowledgeable about her.

The
impression I always gained was that she was the woman who kept the coalition
operating while its late 1960s founder, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, was off
galavanting around the world (he was in Morocco on Thursday, according to WTTW-TV), running for president and taking on crusade after
crusade in which people’s rights were being stepped all over because of their
skin complexion.

Jackson
always gained his “credibility” from the Operation PUSH organization’s
existence. It gave him that home base that allowed him to point to specific
achievements back home.

BUT
HIS REPEATED trips to far-off places to negotiate with hostile governments to
get assorted hostages freed would not have been possible if someone hadn’t been
running the shop back home.

Making
sure that the daily routines and local business was being taken care of so that
people back on the South Side neighborhoods were not being neglected.

That
is the Rev. Barrow. We wouldn’t have a “Jesse Jackson,” senior or junior, of
any public renown if she hadn’t been on the job.

Of
course, it’s always possible that if we hadn’t had Rev. Jackson, Barrow herself
would have become the predominant local civil rights leader.

AS
CHICAGO TEACHERS Union President Karen Lewis said, “Rev. Barrow was a dynamo
when it came to being a champion of justice for the citizens of Chicago, and
for women and children in particular. Her stature (she was just under five feet tall)
was small, but her spirit was gigantic, her energy boundless and her commitment
unwavering.”

Chicago
would be a lesser place had she never chosen to live and work here. Surely, her
native Texas would be better off if it had made her feel more welcome as a
child – she helped to lead a demonstration of rural black children who couldn’t
get to school easily because the local school system in Burton viewed the
expense of providing school buses to transport them as a waste of funds.

Their
loss truly comes as Chicago’s gain, as she settled into our city after
attending the Warner-Pacific Theological Seminary in Portland, Ore., then
helping the Rev. Jackson and others to create the Operation Breadbasket
organization that evolved into PUSH/Rainbow.

I
realize that statements praising someone after their death are dime-a-dozen. They’re
routine. They often resemble a race to see who can come up with the biggest
platitudes the quickest.

ALTHOUGH
THE PASSING of Barrow attracted attention from both President Barack Obama and
his one-time chief of staff-turned-mayor Rahm Emanuel – the latter of whom
issued the order that now has all flags at City Hall and other municipal
buildings flying at half-staff in her honor.

But
as Obama chose to phrase it, “We take comfort in the knowledge that our world
is a far better place because she was a part of it.”

That
just about says it all, even though I’m sure there are some Chicagoans who will
foolishly believe that the recent passing of ballplayers like Ernie Banks or
Minnie Miñoso – both of whom being the first black athletes to play for Chicago
baseball clubs – were somehow more interesting.

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.